Hold a community rummage sale (similar to a garage sale) to earn money for your nonprofit organization.  To carry out this fundraiser idea, you’ll need for your supporters to donate unused furniture and other sellable items to your organization.  If your organization is a registered nonprofit organization with 501c3 status, it’s likely that your supporters will be able to deduct the value of these items from their taxes.  Once you have the items, you can conduct a massive rummage sale, keeping the proceeds for your organization.  Be careful to only accept items from your supporters that you believe your organization will be able to sell, otherwise, you will be stuck with a number of furniture pieces and other items that you will need to store or throw out (which can be costly).  There is another fundraising rummage sale model that prevents this problem: In this model, your supporters sell their goods through the community rummage sale with the idea that, if the item sells, your organization collects the proceeds (basically, the item would become a donation to your organization only if it sells).  If the item(s) doesn’t sell, the supporter keeps the item (and cannot take a tax write off).  As always, encourage your supporters to consult a tax professional before claiming any type of deduction for charitable contributions on their taxes (our posts are not meant to provide any type of tax advice).  Good luck and start clearing out those basements!

For an overview of one school’s extremely large and extremely successful rummage sale, see the video below:

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